Jesse Guilford Guilford won the U.S. Amateur in 1921. That same year he played on the United States Team that competed in the International Challenge Matches at Hoylake. He played on two more Walker Cup Teams (1924, ’26) after the inaugural event at National. Robert T. Jones Jr. Bob Jones was 20 years old when he played in the inaugural Walker Cup Match at National. Although he had already become the darling of Southern golf and was known in golf circles, he was far from the pinnacle of his success. In fact, the Atlantan had yet to win any of his major titles. Less than a year after his appearance at National, however, Jones would win his first, the 1923 U.S. Open at Inwood Country Club on western Long Island. Soon the floodgates would open and Jones, who would remain an amateur throughout his career, would dominate the game. He won 13 major championship titles, including the unmatched Grand Slam of 1930: U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open, British Amateur and British Open. Max Marston Approximately one year after competing in the inaugural Walker Cup Match at National, Marston would win the 1923 U.S. Amateur at Flossmoor Country Club in Illinois. En route to the title, the Pine Valley member defeated Jones, Ouimet and Sweester. In its obituary of Marston, the Associated Press described him as the kind of player who “never gave up.”
GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND Robert Harris (Captain) In his 1959 obituary in the Glasgow Herald, Harris was recalled as “possibly the best golfer ever to have been born in Dundee.” A fixture on the Scottish National Team from 1905 to 1928, Harris captained three GB&I Walker Cup Teams and in 1925 captured the British Amateur Championship in a 13-and-12 victory over Kenneth Fradgley. Although it was the only Amateur title Harris ever won, he made it to the finals three times. Bernard Darwin Darwin was the grandson of famed naturalist Charles Darwin. He went to Eton College and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1897, where he was captain of the golf team. He decided not to practice law and moved into journalism. The first journalist ever to write about golf on a daily basis, he covered the game for The Times of London from 1907 to 1953 and for Country Life from 1907 to 1961. He was a skilled player as well. Darwin twice progressed to the semifinals of the British Amateur, including as recently as at age 44 in 1921. He would eventually go on to serve as captain of The R&A.
Francis Ouimet It is hard to overstate the role Ouimet played in the development of golf in early 20th century America. His upset win over supernovas Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in the 1913 U.S. Open put the game on the front page of the nation’s newspapers. Ouimet was the first amateur golfer to win that championship. He also won the U.S. Amateur twice more, in 1914 and 1931. He would play on eight Walker Cup Teams and was captain in 1932, ’34, ’36, ’38, ’47 and ’49. In 1951 he became the first American elected captain of The R&A.
Cyril Tolley One of the great amateurs of his time, Tolley was twice British Amateur champion and six times a Walker Cup Match player. His first British Amateur win came while he was a student at Oxford in 1920 when he beat Bob Jones in a 19-hole semifinal at Muirfield and then defeated Robert Gardner in the final, also on the first playoff hole. He won a second British Amateur in 1929. In 1930, he met Jones in the fourth round of the British Amateur at St. Andrews. Bernard Darwin covered the match, describing it as “a magnificent dogfight.” The match came to the 17th hole, the Road Hole, all square. Jones holed an 8-foot putt after a poor chip to halve the hole. Jones went on to win the match, the second leg of his legendary “Grand Slam.” Few realize that Tolley, a war hero in World War I, served 13 months in a German prison camp in 1917.
Jess Sweetser Sweetser won the 1922 U.S. Amateur at the age of 20, defeating Bob Jones, 8 and 7, in the semifinal and Chick Evans, 3 and 2, in the championship match. In 1926, at Muirfield, he became the first American-born player to win the British Amateur. Previously, in 1920, he had won a national collegiate championship with Yale. A gifted athlete, Sweetser also excelled in baseball and track.
Roger Wethered Wethered and Tolley both played for the Oxford golf team. Wethered, a Brit, graduated from Oxford in 1921 and promptly lost the British Open to Jock Hutchinson, a professional. Two years later, he won the British Amateur at Deal. He would finish second twice, in 1928 and 1930. Wethered, who would play in five Walker Cup Matches, was the brother of women’s golf legend Joyce Wethered.
THE 44TH WALKER CUP MATCH
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